racist jeremy lin espn headline poll

no does make sense - in this context it just means "maybe he's not invincible after all". not that it couldn't also be a bad pun, it probably was

i mean it does make sense to use it in a way, but espn's tradition of being punny makes me figure it was used here for that purpose and may have not been used otherwise. i wonder how many people something like that has to go through, though.

it certainly did make sense, and even if it was used unintentionally (i'm actually willing to believe this) it's still a fireable offense bcuz one of your jobs as a headline writer is to not write dumb things that unintentionally cause a major controversy and make your employer look terrible

as someone who as worked as a writer and editor of "website news" for four different magazines, I'm guessing the amount of people who saw the headline besides the author is probably somewhere between zero and one.

omar otm, if you really subscribe to the unintentional theory then you have to show how this headline was punny in a way that wasn't racist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CprsGABjLVk

http://frontrow.espn.go.com/2012/02/follow-up-statement-and-action/

the stupidest thing is that the pun doesn't even make sense! jeremy lin is... in the armor? that's a really terrible pun!

no, the racial slur is the pun

right, but it still doesn't make sense

is just outright calling jeremy lin a racial slur a pun? i'm pretty sure it's just straight up racist

The anchor getting suspended for a month seems harsh, he using a turn of phrase he would have used regardless of Lin's race which wasn't true of the headline imo

well yeah it's a racist pun

it make sense if the goal of the headline writer was to create a headline with the meaning that 'jeremy lin is actually fallible,' and so you chose the one expression out of dozens that would pun on a racial slur

yeah that was how I read it

what did the anchor say, i don't even know what that's referring to (to make things worse ESPN used "reference" as a verb, ugh)

he used the phrase 'chink in his armour' re turnovers I think, but it didn't seem to me pre planned, it was part of a discussion and I don't think he was trying to make a pun or a racial comment but i could be wrong.

cozen linked to it a few posts above

one possibility is that the anchor read the headline prior to making those comments - the phrase could have been kicking around in his head

don't feel like looking for timestamps though

i just watched it again and now I'm not sure tbh

They just fired the headline writer but didn't release his name, presumably to keep Dom from googling him

assuming the TV anchor was speaking extemporaneously then it's hard to see that offensive. the headline writer is far more culpable since writing at least allows a moments reflection on what you're saying.

i guess a relevant question is, does this particular saying have any history of being racially coded in this way? (it will from now on, obviously.)

Racially coded? Naw. ESPN's getting railroaded here, like white on rice. Everyone seems to have a slanted opinion on this. Sure it's a little yellow of them to fire the writer but not the TV host, but hey. Doesn't mean everything has to be racially coded, amirite?

i see what you did there

*gong*

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/Linsanity-Postgame-Cold-Open/1386272

linsanity lohan

heiglinsanity lohan

i often wish for disciplinary action on cliched writing in a professional setting, and if it takes charges of racism to make it stick, so be it. For constant unambiguous racist pun headlines though, I turn to the Economist.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2012/02/jeremy-lin-slur-an-honest-mistake-says-fired-espn-editor/1?source=twitter#.T0KA-nJWqvQ

idk I'm willing to believe on some level he didn't 'get what he was doing' because someone who 'got what he was doing' would know that he was gonna lose his job

Bretos tweeted an apology Saturday, writing that: "My wife is Asian, would never intentionally say anything to disrespect her and that community."

sounds like "I get to make offensive comments because I'm married to one/some of my best friends are &c."

*Makes wop joke* - "But my wife is European!"

idk I think it's more like he prob genuinely did not understand that it's as offensive as it is. he prob thought it was like making a germanic pun w/ dirk when really it was like making a hitler pun. idk I think it's hard to believe he really was so intent on sneaking something offensive onto espn that he'd risk his job for it.

haha double idk

yeah that seems pretty plausible... ESPN still should've fired him tho

oh def, people that stupid shouldn't have jobs

His lack of malice seems totally believable, but:
'Federico told the Daily News he understood why he was axed, but added he had used the same phrase "at least 100 times" in past headlines.'

and:
'He said he was particularly remorseful because, like Lin, he considers himself an "outspoken Christian."'

There are subtler crimes going on.

basically you don't have to give him the benefit of the doubt 'maybe he's just stupid' - it is p clear that he is extremely stupid

Maybe it's institutionalized stupidity, though?

I read about this first in the NYT, so I had to guess what the headline said as it was only described in tapdancing fashion.

Bretos tweeted an apology Saturday, writing that: "My wife is Asian, would never intentionally say anything to disrespect her and that community."

sounds like "I get to make offensive comments because I'm married to one/some of my best friends are &c."

― https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0 (dayo), Monday, February 20, 2012 12:30 PM (50 minutes ago)

oh come on man

what?

dayo's right, that is what it sounds like

i am a cynic about this stuff, though

ya but that doesn't rule out that he is fundamentally clueless, also

yeah, but if you're contrite, you're contrite. no need to mention anything beyond that, really

exactly

he wasn't making a pun. it's a very commonly used sports cliche, and i don't see any reason to impugn his sincerity if he says it was unintentional. there's a pretty clear difference between headline writing, where you should obviously be aware of these double meanings (that's more or less your job), and saying something like that in a conversation

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

jeremy who?

racist jeremy lin

barkley will be pretty matty ice but that's still pretty good

the vague sadness of polls that went on too long

Yep, Linsanity came, then went for about 5 games, now hopefully is coming back.

http://i.imgur.com/l1jQQ.jpg

I was at the ACC for Linsanity last night. Not very insane--six points, I think. It reminded me of driving to Detroit with my dad in '94 to see Griffey, and he didn't get the ball out of the infield.

yeah, that was hugely disappointing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvaM0pMj-8o

oh thought this was in ILH